Little Dorrit
but not so your uncle, my dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William
Dorrit, and he knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here’s your father, Amy!
My dear William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see
you!’
(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in
the doorway.)
Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her father’s
neck, and kissed him again and again. Her father was a little impatient,
and a little querulous. ‘I am glad to find you at last, Amy,’ he said.
‘Ha. Really I am glad to find--hum--any one to receive me at last.
I appear to have been--ha--so little expected, that upon my word
I began--ha hum--to think it might be right to offer an apology
for--ha--taking the liberty of coming back at all.’
‘It was so late, my dear William,’ said his brother, ‘that we had given
you up for to-night.’
‘I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,’ returned his brother with an
elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; ‘and I hope I can
travel without detriment at--ha--any hour I choose.’
‘Surely, surely,’ returned the other, with a misgiving that he had given
offence. ‘Surely, William.’
‘Thank you, Amy,’ pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off his
wrappers. ‘I can do it without assistance. I--ha--need not trouble you,
Amy. Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of wine, or--hum--would
it cause too much inconvenience?’
‘Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes.’
‘Thank you, my love,’ said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon him;
‘I--ha--am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Hum. Mrs General pretty
well?’
‘Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and so,
when we gave you up, she went to bed, dear.’
Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being
overcome by the disappointment of his not arriving. At any rate, his
face relaxed, and he said with obvious satisfaction, ‘Extremely sorry to
hear that Mrs General is not well.’
During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, with
something more than her usual interest. It would seem as though he had
a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he perceived and resented
it; for he said with renewed peevishness, when he had divested himself
of his travelling-cloak, and had come to the fire:
‘Amy, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes you
to--ha--concentrate your solicitude on me in that--hum--very particular
manner?’
‘I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon. It gladdens my eyes to
see you again; that’s all.’
‘Don’t say that’s all, because--ha--that’s not all. You--hum--you
think,’ said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, ‘that I am not
looking well.’
‘I thought you looked a little tired, love.’
‘Then you are mistaken,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Ha, I am _not_ tired. Ha, hum. I
am very much fresher than I was when I went away.’
He was so inclined to be angry that she said nothing more in her
justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm. As
he stood thus, with his brother on the other side, he fell into a heavy
doze, of not a minute’s duration, and awoke with a start.
‘Frederick,’ he said, turning to his brother: ‘I recommend you to go to
bed immediately.’
‘No, William. I’ll wait and see you sup.’
‘Frederick,’ he retorted, ‘I beg you to go to bed. I--ha--make it a
personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in bed long
ago. You are very feeble.’
‘Hah!’ said the old man, who had no wish but to please him. ‘Well, well,
well! I dare say I am.’
‘My dear Frederick,’ returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing superiority
to his brother’s failing powers, ‘there can be no doubt of it. It is
painful to me to see you so weak. Ha. It distresses me. Hum. I don’t
find you looking at all well. You are not fit for this sort of thing.
You should be more careful, you should be very careful.’
‘Shall I go to bed?’ asked Frederick.
‘Dear Frederick,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘do, I adjure you! Good night,
brother. I hope you will be stronger to-morrow. I am not at all pleased
with your looks. Good night, dear fellow.’ After dismissing his brother
in this gracious way, he fell into a doze again before the old man was
well out of the room: and he would have stumbled forward upon the logs,
but for his daughter’s restraining hold.
‘Your uncle wanders very much, Amy,’ he said, when he was thus roused.
‘He is less--ha--coherent, and his conversation is more--hum--broken,
than I have--ha, hum--ever known. Has he had any illness since I have
been gone?’
‘No, father.’
‘You--ha--see a great change in him, Amy?’
‘I have not observed it, dear.’
‘Greatly broken,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Greatly broken. My poor,
affectionate, failing Frederick! Ha. Even taking into account what he
was before, he is--hum--sadly broken!’
His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the little
table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention. She sat at
his side as in the days that were gone, for the first time since those
days ended. They were alone, and she helped him to his meat and poured
out his drink for him, as she had been used to do in the prison. All
this happened now, for the first time since their accession to wealth.
She was afraid to look at him much, after the offence he had taken; but
she noticed two occasions in the course of his meal, when he all of a
sudden looked at her, and looked about him, as if the association were
so strong that he needed assurance from his sense of sight that they
were not in the old prison-room. Both times, he put his hand to his head
as if he missed his old black cap--though it had been ignominiously
given away in the Marshalsea, and had never got free to that hour, but
still hovered about the yards on the head of his successor.
He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often
reverted to his brother’s declining state. Though he expressed the
greatest pity for him, he was almost bitter upon him. He said that poor
Frederick--ha hum--drivelled. There was no other word to express it;
drivelled. Poor fellow! It was melancholy to reflect what Amy must have
undergone from the excessive tediousness of his Society--wandering and
babbling on, poor dear estimable creature, wandering and babbling on--if
it had not been for the relief she had had in Mrs General.
Extremely sorry, he then repeated with his former satisfaction, that
that--ha--superior woman was poorly.
Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the lightest
thing he said or did that night, though she had had no subsequent reason
to recall that night. She always remembered that, when he looked about
him under the strong influence of the old association, he tried to
keep it out of her mind, and perhaps out of his own too, by immediately
expatiating on the great riches and great company that had encompassed
him in his absence, and on the lofty position he and his family had to
sustain. Nor did she fail to recall that there were two under-currents,
side by side, pervading all his discourse and all his manner; one
showing her how well he had got on without her, and how independent
he was of her; the other, in a fitful and unintelligible way almost
complaining of her, as if it had been possible that she had neglected
him while he was away.
His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of the
court that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs Merdle. So
naturally indeed, that although there was an unusual want of sequence in
the greater part of his remarks, he passed to her at once, and asked how
she was.
‘She is very well. She is going away next week.’
‘Home?’ asked Mr Dorrit.
‘After a few weeks’ stay upon the road.’
‘She will be a vast loss here,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘A vast--ha--acquisition
at home. To Fanny, and to--hum--the rest of the--ha--great world.’
Little Dorrit thought of the competition that was to be entered upon,
and assented very softly.
‘Mrs Merdle is going to have a great farewell Assembly, dear, and a
dinner before it. She has been expressing her anxiety that you should
return in time. She has invited both you and me to her dinner.’
‘She is--ha--very kind. When is the day?’
‘The day after to-morrow.’
‘Write round in the morning, and say that I have returned, and
shall--hum--be delighted.’
‘May I walk with you up the stairs to your room, dear?’
‘No!’ he answered, looking angrily round; for he was moving away, as if
forgetful of leave-taking. ‘You may not, Amy. I want no help. I am your
father, not your infirm uncle!’ He checked himself, as abruptly as he
had broken into this reply, and said, ‘You have not kissed me, Amy. Good
night, my dear! We must marry--ha--we must marry _you_, now.’ With that
he went, more slowly and more tired, up the staircase to his rooms, and,
almost as soon as he got there, dismissed his valet. His next care was
to look about him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their
cases and carefully surveying them, to put them away under lock and
key. After that, what with dozing and what with castle-building, he lost
himself for a long time, so that there was a touch of morning on the
eastward rim of the desolate Campagna when he crept to bed.
Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and hoped
he had rested well after this fatiguing journey. He sent down his
compliments, and begged to inform Mrs General that he had rested very
well indeed, and was in high condition. Nevertheless, he did not come
forth from his own rooms until late in the afternoon; and, although he
then caused himself to be magnificently arrayed for a drive with
Mrs General and his daughter, his appearance was scarcely up to his
description of himself.
As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined alone
together. He conducted Mrs General to the seat at his right hand with
immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not but notice as she followed
with her uncle, both that he was again elaborately dressed, and that his
manner towards Mrs General was very particular. The perfect formation of
that accomplished lady’s surface rendered it difficult to displace an
atom of its genteel glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a
slight thaw of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye.
Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and
Prismatic nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times fell
asleep while it was in progress. His fits of dozing were as sudden as
they had been overnight, and were as short and profound. When the first
of these slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked almost amazed: but,
on each recurrence of the symptoms, she told her polite beads, Papa,
Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, by dint of going through that
infallible performance very slowly, appeared to finish her rosary at
about the same time as Mr Dorrit started from his sleep.
He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick (which
had no existence out of his own imagination), and after dinner, when
Frederick had withdrawn, privately apologised to Mrs General for the
poor man. ‘The most estimable and affectionate of brothers,’ he said,
‘but--ha, hum--broken up altogether. Unhappily, declining fast.’
‘Mr Frederick, sir,’ quoth Mrs General, ‘is habitually absent and
drooping, but let us hope it is not so bad as that.’
Mr Dorrit, however, was determined not to let him off. ‘Fast declining,
madam. A wreck. A ruin. Mouldering away before our eyes. Hum. Good
Frederick!’
‘You left Mrs Sparkler quite well and happy, I trust?’ said Mrs General,
after heaving a cool sigh for Frederick.
‘Surrounded,’ replied Mr Dorrit, ‘by--ha--all that can charm the taste,